Your Idea is Worthless

Whoa! I think I offended every entrepreneur with that title, many of them might even consider this blasphemy. But with each passing day, I’m beginning to realize that this just may be true. Before I explain why I’m of this view, let me set some context on what lead me to this –

I have a HUGE circle of friends many of whom want to help in my start up. As I don’t require much capital (and coz most of my friends are broke ;)), helping with cash is out of the table. Few have offered to connect me with their ‘contacts’ or ‘Angels’, which I truly appreciate. The rest of them have either said ‘Lemme know if you need someone to brainstorm with’ or ‘I can give ideas on how to market your website’ or ‘I’ll help by giving inputs on design’.  

I think there’re 2 aspects in starting/running a business – ideation and implementation. Understandably, the ideation part is the ‘cooler’ of the 2. It includes, amongst other, a thorough understanding of your customers’ requirements, clarity on the long term vision of your company, a good mix of domain knowledge – first principles and creativity. But this is just half the story. It’s the implementation part which is tricky.

I’d define implementation as ‘getting the job done’. This is where it gets difficult. Getting your team to ‘understand’ your idea and making them carry it out to perfection can be a very arduous task. Implementation requires a lot of thinking on your feet. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong during this phase. It’s physically and mentally taxing. And above all, it takes time.

During the early part of your start-up, I’m sure you’ll find a hundred different people who’ll be giving ideas and these people are easier to find. The challenge will lie in getting ‘implementers’ to work with you and ensuring that your plans are carried out.

I’ll conclude this post by rephrasing my topic. “Your idea is worthless…unless you have a good enough team to implement the same”.